Center for Individual Rights

The Center for Individual Rights claims it opposes discrimination but its agenda is to oppose affirmative action and other programs that attempt to restore racial/gender/sexual equality by favoring those who have been traditionally discriminated against.

They supported the Boy Scouts in their effort to exclude homosexuals.

Overview
The Center for Individual Rights is a conservative U.S. law firm, in contrast to liberal groups such as the ACLU and Public Citizen. The group started in April 1989. "The founders, Michael McDonald and Michael Greve, met through their work at the Washington Legal Foundation. McDonald, an attorney, specialized in First Amendment litigation and had launched WLF's Legal Studies Division in 1987; Greve, in turn, wrote on environmental issues and assisted with WLF's fundraising."

Cases
The Center is currently involved in a case before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, which "prohibits certain southern jurisdictions from implementing changes in voting procedures unless they first obtain federal pre-clearance that the proposed changes do not have the purpose or effect of reducing the ability of citizens to vote on the basis of their race." In July 2010, the "North Carolina State Conference of Branches of the NAACP and several Kinston, NC residents moved to intervene as defendants in LaRoque v. Holder, CIR's case challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The proposed Defendant-Intervenors seek to defend the constitutionality of the preclearance provisions of Section 5, which the Justice Department used to prohibit Kinston from implementing a nonpartisan voting system favored by 63% of Kinston residents.  The Proposed Defendant-intervenors argue that their interest in protecting minority voting rights will not be adequately protected by the Department of Justice and so seek to intervene as additional parties in the case."

The Center is also representing video provocateur James O'Keefe. In March of 2011, the Center " filed a motion in federal court to strike down a California anti-tape recording statute that CIR contends violates the First Amendment. In that statute, California has made it a criminal offense for a person not affiliated with law enforcement to record his own 'confidential' conversation with any other person, unless that person consents to being recorded." Juan Carlos Vera, a former ACORN employee is suing O’Keefe for civil damages with regard to the series of videos he filmed about ACORN in 2009.

The Center represented Anita MonCrief, former employee of ACORN's subsidiary Project Vote, in her countersuit against ACORN "for abuse of process" in ACORN's suit "for $5 million in damages" and "alleging she committed trademark infringement and other torts in connection with her blogging and emailing about the intertwined groups." MonCrief is now a regular contributor to conservative blogs such as "Big Government, Hot Air, NetRight Daily, RedState [and] NewsReal Blog." She is also "the National Spokesperson for American Majority and the Editor-in-Chief of a new website, Emerging Corruption."

A list of further cases can be found via the Center's [http://www.cir-usa.org/case_results.php? CIR case finder].

Funding
The organization's income from contributions is over 1 million dollars a year.


 * Koch Family Foundations gave $40,000
 * Randolph Foundation
 * F.M. Kirby Foundation $125,000
 * The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation gave $1.52 million from 1989-2006

The group receives most of its funding from libertarian and conservative foundations such as those run by Richard Mellon Scaife.

Links page
Their "helpful links" page links to libertarian and conservative groups such as the Federalist Society, The Institute for Justice, the Hudson Institute, the Koch-funded groups Heritage Foundation, Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Cato Institute, FreedomWorks and Commentary Magazine.

Personnel
Staff:
 * Terence J. Pell, President
 * Michael E. Rosman, General Counsel

Board of Directors:
 * Jeremy A. Rabkin, (Chairman) professor of International Law at the George Mason Law School.
 * Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College.
 * Robert P. George
 * James B. Mann
 * Arthur Stephen Penn
 * James Piereson, President of the William E. Simon Foundation
 * Gerald Walpin

Former:
 * Ann Coulter

Contact details
Center for Individual Rights 1233 20th Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: 202-833-8400 Fax: 202-833-8410 E-mail: cir AT cir-usa.org Web: http://www.cir-usa.org

Related SourceWatch articles

 * American Civil Rights Coalition
 * List of 'conservative' organizations